


Old Wounds

by FictionPenned



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Alex asked why we even have this lever, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-07
Updated: 2020-06-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:35:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24595390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FictionPenned/pseuds/FictionPenned
Summary: “Ah, so that hasn’t changed. Let me guess, you doomed the universe instead of listening to my warning?” His words have the approximate timbre of a joke, but it’s not a particularly good one. Jack knows that, but he doesn’t bite it back. He doesn’t know how he expected the Doctor to greet him — their history is riddled with discomfort and personal biases — but he expected something warmer than this, and it leaves him bitter. “You’re not the only person who loses people, you know. Not that you asked, but I settled down for a while. Nice fellow. Kind. But time slipped him on by and ripped him from my arms and I kept going. Tried not to let it get to me, tried to let myself move on and pretend that the time that we had together was enough, but it still slips in sometimes.”The Doctor raises her eyes to him. Ancient, sad, arresting, in-between colors, in-between thoughts, and in-between eons. Not so different from her old eyes.A thought occurs to him, but he drowns it with the remainder of his whiskey.Written for Thirteen Fanzine Prompt Week Day 7: It's not always black and white.
Relationships: The Doctor & Jack Harkness, Thirteenth Doctor & Jack Harkness
Comments: 6
Kudos: 94





	Old Wounds

“How long has it been for you?” Jack asks, leaning against a pillar and running his gaze across the TARDIS interior. He drags a thumb over his bottom lip as he tries to count his own years. There had been a time when he would have known the number off of the top of his head. For a long time, he chased and obsessed over the Doctor as if it was his job, but he’s finally picked up the pieces and moved past that phase of his life.

Some people might have called that maturity. He wouldn’t go that far. He’s just found other ways to keep himself busy.

The Doctor glances up from the console, blonde hair slipping back from her face. Jack watches as her teeth work at the inside of her cheek, chewing at some thought or another. He wouldn’t be surprised if she lied to him. It wouldn’t be the first time. “I don’t know.”

Shoving his hands in his pockets, Jack pushes himself off of the wall and begins an idle circle, as if surveying the ship, but every couple of steps his eyes turn back to the Doctor. “Looks a bit different from the last time I was here. Shockingly organic, compared to last time. But I suppose there’s still not a fully stocked bar?”

The Doctor shrugs. “I keep regenerating; she keeps redecorating.” She digs around in the pocket of her coat, and Jack tilts his head in mild interest. He isn’t quite sure what to expect, but it’s certainly not a baseball hurled at a corner of the ship. The force of the throw pops a panel open, revealing a stockpile of whiskey, and the baseball bounces along the wall for another moment before disappearing down a grate. 

Jack's eyebrows raise. “You just got 90% more interesting.”

“It’s not mine.”

“Whose is it, then? The silver fox didn’t seem the drinking type.”

“And I do?”

“Maybe. Maybe not. Been a while, hasn’t it?” Amusement curls at the corners of Jack’s lips, but it falls away in the next moment. The Doctor’s not playing games with him, not bantering. She’s putting walls up, placing leagues between them in the way that she did when they first met. He crosses the floor and pours himself a generous drink. He pours one for her, too, just to be friendly, even though he has the creeping sense that she won’t touch it.

Steps bridge the gap between them and he settles at her shoulder, holding out the second glass. “I thought you’d trust me by now.”

She bristles and refuses the drink. “You kidnapped my friends and asked that they make me take a life. Not trustworthy behavior, is it?” The words seethe and her eyes flash as she glances up at him.

Jack meets it with ineffable calm. The Doctor’s been angry at him before. He can weather it now. And besides, he knows that he was right, even if she resents him for it.

After a moment, the storm clears slightly, and the Doctor presses her palms flat against the console, leaning forward and dropping her head. “It’s River’s stash. Didn’t have the heart to move it.”

Her fingers tense and tighten, knuckles going white.

Jack looks away, downing the shallow pour of the Doctor’s glass before setting it aside and turning his attention back to his own. “Your wife, right?”

The Doctor’s silence is answer enough.

“She still around?”

The Doctor’s breath trickles out her nose in a steady stream. “No.” The grief only lingers for a moment before she shoves it aside, buries it beneath an onslaught of meaningless jabber meant to distract and obfuscate. “She stole half your stuff, so if you go looking for it, you won’t find it. The rest is around somewhere. You’ll have to ask the TARDIS.”

Jack chuckles into his glass. “It’s been centuries. Don’t even remember what I left.”

“A squareness gun, for one,” the Doctor’s nose wrinkles, disgust evident.

“Ah, so _that_ hasn’t changed. Let me guess, you doomed the universe instead of listening to my warning?” His words have the approximate timbre of a joke, but it’s not a particularly good one. Jack knows that, but he doesn’t bite it back. He doesn’t know how he expected the Doctor to greet him — their history is riddled with discomfort and personal biases — but he expected something warmer than _this_ , and it leaves him bitter. “You’re not the only person who loses people, you know. Not that you asked, but I settled down for a while. Nice fellow. Kind. But time slipped him on by and ripped him from my arms and I kept going. Tried not to let it get to me, tried to let myself move on and pretend that the time that we had together was enough, but it still slips in sometimes.”

The Doctor raises her eyes to him. Ancient, sad, arresting, in-between colors, in-between thoughts, and in-between eons. Not so different from her old eyes.

A thought occurs to him, but he drowns it with the remainder of his whiskey.

Beats of silence pass, and for a moment, he thinks that the Doctor isn’t going to reply to him at all. “I don’t even know what’s real anymore,” she says.

“Does anyone?”

“I’m missing time, Jack.”

Jack turns his eyes upward, raking them across the ceiling as he fights to divine her meaning, but he doesn’t get anywhere. He’s not a mind reader, and the Doctor has always been shockingly enigmatic. Perhaps that’s why he’s always been drawn back here. “What do you mean?”

“Bodies I never had, lives I don’t remember, and no matter how hard I push, it’s all still gone.”

Jack whistles, low and slow. “So how old does that make you?”

The Doctor shakes her head. “Older than the Time Lords, apparently.”

“ _Oh_ — that’s rich, coming from you,” Jack says, tongue loaded with a dozen reminders of scathing remarks and actions that the Doctor subjected him to during their time together, the abandonment that he grappled with for far too long. “Imagine, _you_ — guilty of the same crimes that you abandoned me for. Wonder what other skeletons you have tucked away somewhere?”

“Don’t start.” Tears shine in her eyes, and it stills Jack’s tongue. For all the times his heart has stopped, for all the bitterness that gathers with the passing years, Jack Harkness is far from heartless.

They lapse into silence, and after half an age, the Doctor breaks it. “Can we start over?”

The thought is tempting, but Jack doesn’t surrender to it. Forgetting is easy, and forgiving is hard, but forgiveness means more. Forgiveness heals words. Forgetting leaves them festering. “No. But if it makes you feel better, I can offer up a rousing _hello_.”

The Doctor’s gaze flits to him, still glazed with tears, but slightly brighter. “Rather you didn’t do that.”

Jack can't help it. The mood lifts slightly, and he flashes a blindingly white grin. “It’s just a hello.” 

The Doctor sniffs and digs her heels in further. “We both know it’s not.”

And for the first time in who knows how long, Jack sees the Doctor smile.


End file.
